Tuesday, 20 July 2010

Turtle and dugong activist, Colin Riddell, has put up $5,000 as a reward to catch those responsible for the slaughter of dugongs near the top of Cape York recently.

"I offered a $5000 reward today for the conviction and appropriate sentencing on cruelty charges for the persons cutting up the sea turtle , let us see Peter Garrett and co dodge this," Colin Riddell said today.

"Environment Minister Peter Garrett will not act, I have. I am a private citizen," he says. "I have personally offered a $5,000 reward for the conviction and appropriate sentencing of those people videoed in the Torres Straits in an act of cruelty to a sea turtle," Riddell said.

"As the video I have released shows [see below], the limbs of the turtle were hacked off whilst the animal was alive," he says. "This senseless act of cruelty has not at all been sought to be prevented by the Department of Environment, nor have past atrocities been followed up. No person in Australia should be able to treat an animal like that and get away with it."

"For instance the slaughter of three dugongs off Cairns on Anzac day, and at Yarrabah when 14 of these harmless creatures were herded up and murdered. “Where is the Minister of Environment?” I have made many attempts to get the Minister and his office to investigate the illegal trade of turtle egg and meat trade - including dugongs - through Cairns airport with no response! Month after month goes by with no action from the Governments, Federal or State."

Federal candidate for Leichhardt, Warren Entsch says there needs to be tougher legislation to protect sea turtles and dugongs.

"Someone knows who set those nets for the dugongs off Yarrabah," Warren Entsch says. "We have got to remove any entitlement to use commercial nets of any description for traditional [Aboriginal] fishing."

Colin Riddell says there are many people that are appalled with what he calls "blatant indigenous cruelty," who have also offered support, including Bob Irwin and Derryn Hinch," Riddell says. "Barrister Geoff Beveridge has all provided me with an overview of the legislation that in his opinion only supports aboriginal animal abuse."

"He and others have offered to add substantially to the reward, and echo the sentiment of the hundreds of people I have spoken to."

"It’s about time someone did something before it’s too late," Colin Riddell says.

15 comments:

Brad of Yarrabah
said...

$5000 Is that a joke...Colin Riddel...What a 'Try-Hard'.... Blow it out of your backside, because thats where crap talk like that belongs. Hey Riddell and Enstch your both hypocrites. No one was over here from the GBRMPA when thousands of marine life were poisoned in Yarrabah waters by commercial fishermen loast month ago. Hundreds of fishes died through chemicals thrown overboard, and you guys act and talk like the marine 'saviors'. Good Go....

Well should you not attack gbrmpa? than us because I think they are as useless as you are in not reporting the poachers in yarrabah .Especially as you work there I know who you are to mr h.So jam your abuse where you told me to blow it.

Thanks kitchen slut I also am not a fan of your persuasions either but heartly thank you for your offer .I have others with offers and will ramp it up on those conditions if required. A lot of us go for it on here but on this issue I am deadly serious.

ATSIC City Observer? What century are you in? The organisation hasn't existed for nearly a decade.

If you mean Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in derogatory terms you have made such a gross generalisation that even I as a whitefellow am upset at the insult you make towards many decent upstanding members of our community and also friends of mine.

Bet you hate all those scum sucking asylum seeking boat people who are going to destroy our country too.

It seems being so narrow minded and making such glib statements gives you imagined power and makes you feel good hey?

Trouble is all you do is offend many good people with your ignorance and the actual bad guys who should be made accountable will still get away with it.

Lol...im with you Cairns Swingers Inc...Too right there. I think that Colin Riddell will have to go and chase some cash of his commercial fisherman 'buddies' up the cape who make thousands of dollars via 'shark-finning'. Yeah you mob don't say anything about them and they been doing that for the last 5 decades. There's another one for your 'newspaper-fact-gathering-hynee'. If all the ATSIC brothers and sisters know about this $5000 crap, (which they will) you will be running for the hills. One more thing to the johnny-cum-latelies who wanna save the animals all-of-a-sudden, go and do something positive with your mari-time instead of raving on the internet like a god-forsaken-version of 'Noah'. You guys crack me up How you go 'ALL-Out' for nothing....lol...

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